En el ascensor

After class today, Sarah and I headed back to our apartment.  (We have a seven hour break in the middle of the day.)  We stepped in the elevator and pressed the button for the floor.  Nothing happened.  We pressed it again.  Nothing.  So then we pressed the buttons for all the floors and still nothing happened.  We were stuck on the first floor and the doors would not open!!

We began to consider our options: there were two buttons that had bells on them, a red buttons with a Spanish word neither of us recognized, and a speaker with a button.  We had no idea how to say that we were stuck in the elevator if we used the speaker so we pressed the bells.  We knocked on the door.  We called our other roommate hoping she was home to rescue us (she wasn't).  We thought about calling our señora but had the same language issue.  So we pounded on the door some more.

Suddenly the door was being pried open.  It opened about four inches and we saw a man's face and he said "¡hola!" and we said "¡gracias!" and suddenly the elevator was going up. 

At least we weren't like this woman: stuck in an elevator for eight days.

FYI: to say you're stuck in an elevator in Spanish, just say "atascarse en el ascensor."  The grammar may be a bit off here but the gist of the phrase is clear.